NaviPlan among most popular choices in quest for "perfect" financial planning software

In a quest for the "perfect" financial planning software, Canada's Forum magazine features a review of the three most popular applications to help advisors determine which one is the most flexible, comprehensive, and intuitive.

"I have spent the last dozen years buying, learning, adapting, tricking, and then ditching financial planning software in my quest for the perfect package," says Forum's Technology Specialist Kevin Cork, who is also a financial advisor.

The Forum article, called "What's new in software", evaluates EISI's NaviPlan, FP Solutions by CCH Canada, and Profile FP by Intuit GreenPoint against Cork's view that financial planning software generally needs to serve the needs of two broad categories of clients: wealth accumulators and retirees, and provide advisors with the best set of reporting tools to enhance the way they present plans to their clients.

Cork writes: "Before investing in any of the financial planning software packages out there, you need to determine what sort of client you mostly have."

He says that financial planning software "should be flexible and comprehensive to accommodate every different client's goal, odd need, or unusual asset," and that the plan presented should combine raw calculations that can be tempered by the advisor to address each client's needs.

NaviPlan Standard and NaviPlan Extended provide goals-based and cash flow-based financial planning capabilities, respectively, and both feature customizable client reports and presentation tools that advisors can tailor to suit each client.

Advisors can use NaviPlan to create charts, reports, and documents that are simple, direct, and intelligible to the average client, which earns NaviPlan credibility among the three most popular financial planning software packages in Canada.

"One of the strengths of this software," says Cork, "is how easy it is to customize any of the materials it generates."